Past, Present, Future
by made-in-wonder
Summary: Anagramshipping. Written for 15pairings on LJ. A common history does not guarantee a happy ending.


**Disclaimer: **Yugioh isn't mine.

* * *

He played traps like Rishid: that was the first thing I noticed.

"Apophis," I guessed as he set a card across the lunchroom table; he looked over, his face chiseled in a single unrelenting blankness, but I thought I spied surprise within. "The silver medalist," he acknowledged; I shrugged and clapped his opponent on the back - disarmingly hard, surprising even myself. "Good luck," I told the man who faced him. "You'll need it."

I spent the rest of the break absorbing this man.

His name was Karim; he'd been working on the same project Sister assigned me to for a good month prior to my arrival. He was, Sister had told me, their best translator; I should make every effort to get along with him. Yet he kept to himself. In my mingling with my new coworkers, my efforts to get into the society as quickly as possible (and make myself invaluable, of course), I'd yet to see him once. But here he sat, engaged in a friendly, if tense, lunchroom duel.

And there he stood, an hour later, volunteering to work with me on a papyrus recently excavated from a priest's tomb.

"They say you read it fluently," he ventured with some hesitation; I nodded, not wishing to betray too much of my background, too keen to suspect admitting it was my native tongue could ever be accepted. "Where did you learn?"

I paused. "They say the same thing about you," I replied, fixing him with a sidelong glance: tall, like Rishid; stalwart, like Rishid. An electricity to him, to his eyes on me, to his hands next to mine - unlike Rishid had ever been. "You first."

He paused - the same pause I had just employed. "I didn't," he admitted, staring down at his hands. "I grew up in Cairo, intending to inherit my father's coffeehouse. Yet one day I visited the grand museum." He turned his attention to the script before us. "I could read every word."

My skin prickled. Had I still possessed my Item, I had an uneasy feeling it might have reacted to his words - as it had reacted to Seto Kaiba, months before. "It's not impossible," I ventured. "There's too much in this world yet to be rediscovered, too many mysteries left unrecorded. Perhaps there's something explaining it we haven't uncovered yet."

"I have dreams, too," he added softly. "Dreams of a Pharaoh, of priests and a war. Of a great darkness, and an evil god."

That sounded entirely too familiar, like the story branded on more than just my skin. "Do you usually admit this to strangers?" I asked, giving him a somewhat teasing smile: his expression, of course, remained fixed. Nothing could move this man, I realized. Then I realized I admired that.

"I can admit it to you," he replied, and I kicked myself inside for assuming he would know nothing. If he'd had these experiences - if he'd carried within him connections to the same ancient drama - of course he would have talked to my sister. Of course she would have tried to help. Of course she would have wanted _me_ involved. You could have told me, Sister, I thought with some fervor - then wondered why I cared so much. "The Secretary-General…"

"Is a very poor tombkeeper, if it means people can be helped," I replied harshly, then lowered my head. "You tried to trap me."

"You evaded it." He smiled as I raised my head again. "I want to learn from you."

"I'll teach." Whose voice had offered that, whose mouth? I found myself staring at his instead.

He nodded gratefully. We turned back to the papyrus. I tried to put my thoughts in the best possible order. I could work with this, I told myself, then wondered to what end. But there had to be an end. There always was.

"Malik," he finally asked, his story told, his eyes faraway - where? I wondered, wishing to follow - "do you believe in fate?"

I paused. His nearness made my chest feel sore. "Yes," I replied.

That was the past.

"What are you doing?" he asks me, shoving me off his arm: the trap master now feeling himself caught, his normally stony expression accusatory. I refuse to swear aloud, or curse my own misjudgment - I also refuse to blame anyone but myself. Too much? Too soon? But how…

We've been inseparable. I'd calculated perfectly. Yet he refuses me now.

"Don't pretend you haven't noticed it too," I request, my chin lowered but my glance raised. "I see you watching me just as much as I watch you. Where's the problem? We respect each other - and it takes a greater man than you suppose to earn _my_ respect."

"I do _not_ feel for you this way," he denies, still stony, seething inside; he turns away, and this time I do swear - but under my breath, I have my pride. I picked the wrong end, didn't I, I think with some humiliation. Just because these feelings were new - just because I sensed - but I am _not_ that poor a judge of character, he's the one in denial here -

"Kalim, listen," I begin; but he halts me with a gesture, a swift sideways chopping of his hand. "I have listened long enough," he retorts, his mouth taut. "You're a child still, after all. Only after what you want, not a greater goal."

It stings - it stings all the more coming from _him_, from the man I fear has become my new obsession, from the fascinating imperturbable former priest (we've hypothesized that much, in long hours pouring over carvings on walls, on photocopies of tomb rubbings, in days spent absorbed in nothing but a puzzle and the delight of working out a millennia-old solution - though I've been delighting in something else entirely on the side). "Why can't I want both?" I ask sourly, and only realize after the words have left my mouth how childish they do sound. "Come, Karim. Let's live in the present world, just this once -"

"You know _nothing_ of the present world!" he accuses; I feel a retort rise, hot and defiant, in my throat, but swallow it back down no matter how much my stomach burns. "Such things are not done in today's Egypt, Malik. And I will not relent."

I know when a different tactic is needed, but I can think of none. In the face of his convictions, I am muted for the first time in my life, my emotions unable to channel themselves towards my goal, thrashing aimlessly, denied their purpose. The gulf of three thousand years that once united us now divides us instead.

This is the present.

In forty-eight hours I will board a plane, but I have not yet begun to pack. My luggage will likely be prepared by Rishid, who will grow concerned that I haven't left my room and don't seem to be moving about. He won't ask me for a reason and I shall give him no reply.

Rishid will miss me: of that much I'm certain. But I shall keep in touch - regularly, at first, but dwindling over time as I discover things only I can do, things I can call my own and share with no one, least of all the man who shall be accompanying me on this outpost assignment back in Japan. We shall work together on a translation project: artifacts unlawfully smuggled out of our country by one Pegasus J. Crawford, now donated to the Domino Museum upon announcement of his death and reading of his will. We shall translate Pegasus's finds. We shall lobby, despite the deceased's last wishes, for the return of the artifacts to their rightful homes. We shall keep the tomb and serve the Pharaoh as we always have, in our own ways.

Yet our words will remain professional, curt, tense. We shall speak only of translation of certain passages, of news from back home, of the differences between Japan and Egypt. I shall likely, despite my better judgment, flaunt my knowledge of the world a bit more than necessary. He shall dismiss it, insist on comparing everything to the only world he has ever known; I, who understand men's minds better than they do, shall smile in secret at his nervous defense.

And I shall try not to watch him too long, stare too much, betray that any feelings from what passed between us still remain; but I'll be thinking, planning all the while. He meant what he said - but human opinions can change, and he does feel something for me, of that I've no doubt; there was pain in his eyes as he pushed me away. We shall live separate lives, but moment by moment and thought by thought I shall return him to my side. He was and will be a priest, but I was almost and will be a king.

That will be the future.


End file.
